Narrator: In May 1994, a 24-year-old medical student named Deogratias, or Deo, was carried by a desperate crowd onto a passenger jet at Bujumbura International Airport. Looking back, he saw the hills of his home country, Burundi, shrouded in smoke. It seemed as if the entire world was on fire. He was escaping a civil war and the spillover from the genocide in neighboring Rwanda, a conflict that had turned his homeland into what he could only describe as hell. With just a few dollars and the clothes on his back, he was flying toward New York City, a place he knew only in his imagination. He had no plan, no contacts, and no idea of the profound disorientation and hardship that awaited him.

This harrowing flight is the opening chapter in an extraordinary story of survival, resilience, and the restorative power of human connection. In his book Strength in What Remains, author Tracy Kidder chronicles Deo's journey from the depths of unimaginable trauma to a life of healing and purpose, revealing how a person can rebuild a life from the ashes of personal and national tragedy.

Narrator: Deo’s escape from Burundi was not an arrival into safety, but an entry into a new kind of chaos. Landing first in Ireland, which he mistook for New York, he was immediately confronted by the bewildering reality of being a refugee: unable to speak the language, disoriented, and utterly alone. His true arrival in New York City plunged him deeper into this confusion. The idealized America of his imagination collided with the harsh reality of his circumstances. He found shelter with a Senegalese baggage handler named Muhammad in a squalid Harlem tenement, a place that shocked him with its poverty.

The city itself was an incomprehensible maze. Tasked with finding a grocery store for a potential job, Deo ventured into the subway system for the first time. He bought tokens and boarded the first train that arrived, with no idea where it was going. For hours, he was a ghost in the machine, hurtling through the dark tunnels, unable to read the maps or understand the harsh-sounding announcements. He tried to ask for help, but his French was useless, and the faces around him were indifferent. In that moment, lost beneath the city, he felt a crushing sense of powerlessness, a feeling captured in his thought: "No one is in control of his own life." This experience wasn't just about being lost geographically; it was a profound symbol of his entire existence as a refugee—stripped of his past, his education, and his identity, adrift in a world that made no sense.

Narrator: To understand why Deo had to flee, one must understand the insidious nature of the ethnic conflict that tore his country apart. The violence didn't erupt overnight. It was preceded by a slow poisoning of everyday life, where ordinary interactions became charged with hidden menace. Deo recalls a time before the genocide when new, seemingly innocuous greetings became popular among students. People would raise a fist to their ear and say, "Inivo nu gutwi," which translates to "at the level of the ear." Another phrase was "Susuruka," meaning "warm them up." Deo and his friends laughed and repeated the phrases, thinking them a harmless fad.

It was only much later that he learned the horrifying truth. "Inivo nu gutwi" was coded language among Hutu extremists, indicating the target for a machete blow. "Susuruka" was a call to pour gasoline on Tutsis and set them on fire. This chilling revelation shows how an entire society was being primed for violence, with the language of extermination woven into the fabric of daily greetings. The threat was everywhere, even in a simple hello, creating an atmosphere of paranoia where trust was impossible and survival depended on deciphering a deadly code.

Narrator: After months of homelessness, sleeping in Central Park and working as a grocery delivery boy, Deo’s life was transformed by a series of small, determined acts of kindness. The change began with Sharon McKenna, a former Benedictine nun working at a church. Guided by the principle to "Receive all as Christ," Sharon saw Deo's desperation and made it her mission to help him. She made dozens of calls to charities and social services, hitting one dead end after another.

Finally, she reached Nancy and Charlie Wolf, a couple she knew from the church. The Wolfs, whose own worldview had been shaped by years living in Nigeria, were hesitant at first. But Sharon’s persistence, combined with their empathy for Deo’s situation, broke through their reservations. They invited Deo to live with them, offering him not just a room, but a family and a foundation from which to rebuild his life. This act of radical generosity from strangers was the critical turning point. It provided Deo with the stability and support he needed to begin healing and to start dreaming again of the future he thought he had lost forever.

Narrator: With the Wolfs' support, Deo enrolled at Columbia University. He immersed himself in philosophy, searching for answers to the profound questions that haunted him: how could such evil exist? What is the nature of good? While Columbia provided an intellectual refuge, true healing came when he found a community that understood the world as he did. This happened when he discovered Dr. Paul Farmer's book Infections and Inequalities, which connected disease with poverty and social injustice. For the first time, Deo felt that someone else understood the world’s deep-seated inequities.

He began working for Farmer's organization, Partners In Health (PIH), and found a home. He describes walking into the PIH office as feeling like he was "opening my own house." His work gave him a profound sense of purpose. One story captures this transformation perfectly: the first time he drove a sleeping Paul Farmer to the airport, Deo felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness and responsibility. He was no longer just a survivor; he was a caregiver, a contributor to a mission larger than himself. By dedicating himself to helping others who were suffering, Deo found a way to channel his own pain into a powerful force for good, realizing, "This kind of work is not just work. It’s part of me, my life, me."

Narrator: Years later, Deo returns to Burundi, a journey fraught with emotional and cultural landmines. The trip reveals the deep scars left on the country and on its people. As he nears his home village of Butanza, he warns his companion, "And when we get to Butanza we don’t talk about Clovis," his deceased best friend. He explains the Burundian custom of gusimbura, the taboo of speaking the names of the dead because it revives painful memories. This concept highlights a central tension in post-conflict societies: the delicate balance between remembering and forgetting.

His return is not a simple, happy reunion. He is met with love, but also with a long line of relatives reciting their troubles and asking for money. He is both a beloved son of the village and a symbol of outside wealth, a position that leaves him feeling conflicted. He sees the immense poverty and the lingering trauma, observing that Coca-Cola can reach the most remote villages, but essential medicines cannot. Deo's return is not an end to his journey, but another complex chapter, forcing him to confront the difficult reality of what it means to love a place that is the source of both your deepest identity and your most profound pain.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Strength in What Remains is that healing from profound trauma is not a passive process of recovery, but an active process of creation. Deo’s story demonstrates that strength is found not merely in surviving the unimaginable, but in the deliberate, difficult work of building a new life, finding a new purpose, and forging new connections. His journey shows that while hatred and violence can shatter a life, they cannot extinguish the human capacity for kindness, generosity, and resilience.

Ultimately, the book challenges us to consider where true strength lies. Is it in the ability to endure pain, or in the courage to transform that pain into a mission of service? Deo’s life suggests the latter. He found his strength not by forgetting his past, but by using it as fuel to build a future for others, reminding us that even in the aftermath of utter devastation, something powerful, something beautiful, can remain.